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Ramage, Magnus and Shipp, Karen (2009). Systems Thinkers. London: Open University/Springer-Verlag.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-525-3
URL: http://www.springer.com/life+sci/behavioural/book/...
Abstract
Systems Thinkers presents a biographical history of the field of systems thinking, by examining the life and work of thirty of its major thinkers. It discusses each thinker's key contributions, the way this contribution was expressed in practice and the relationship between their life and ideas. This discussion is supported by an extract from the thinker's own writing, to give a flavour of their work and to give readers a sense of which thinkers are most relevant to their own interests.
Systems thinking is necessarily interdisciplinary, so that the thinkers selected come from a wide range of areas - biology, management, physiology, anthropology, chemistry, public policy, sociology and environmental studies among others. Some are core innovators in systems ideas; some have been primarily practitioners who also advanced and popularised systems ideas; others are well-known figures who drew heavily upon systems thinking although it was not their primary discipline. A significant aim of the book is to broaden and deepen the reader's interest in systems writers, providing an appetising "taster" for each of the 30 thinkers, so that the reader is encouraged to go on to study the published works of the thinkers themselves.
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About
- Item ORO ID
- 16948
- Item Type
- Book
- ISBN
- 1-84882-524-2, 978-1-84882-524-6
- Extra Information
-
Contents:
Introduction (FULL TEXT ATTACHED)
Early Cybernetics
Chapter 1: Gregory Bateson
Chapter 2: Norbert Wiener
Chapter 3: Warren McCulloch
Chapter 4: Margaret Mead
Chapter 5: Ross Ashby
General Systems Theory
Chapter 6: Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Chapter 7: Kenneth Boulding
Chapter 8: Geoffrey Vickers
Chapter 9: Howard Odum
System Dynamics
Chapter 10: Jay Forrester
Chapter 11: Donella Meadows
Chapter 12: Peter Senge
Soft and Critical Systems
Chapter 13: C. West Churchman
Chapter 14: Russell Ackoff
Chapter 15: Peter Checkland
Chapter 16: Werner Ulrich
Chapter 17: Michael Jackson
Later Cybernetics
Chapter 18: Heinz von Foerster
Chapter 19: Stafford Beer
Chapter 20: Humberto Maturana
Chapter 21: Niklas Luhmann
Chapter 22: Paul Watzlawick
Complexity Theory
Chapter 23: Ilya Prigogine
Chapter 24: Stuart Kauffman
Chapter 25: James Lovelock
Learning Systems
Chapter 26: Kurt Lewin
Chapter 27: Eric Trist
Chapter 28: Chris Argyris
Chapter 29: Donald Schön (FULL TEXT ATTACHED)
Chapter 30: Mary Catherine Bateson
- Keywords
- biographical history; systems ideas; systems thinkers
- Academic Unit or School
-
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Computing and Communications
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) - Copyright Holders
- © 2009 The Open University
- Depositing User
- Magnus Ramage